1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to mobile devices; and, more particularly, to the ability to detect a color of an item in proximity and present the user with color information.
2. Related Art
Often, a user needs to buy an item, such as a shirt, that needs to match another item that the user already possesses, such as a pant. Trying to find a pant that matches the color of the shirt is a big problem. The user is often forced to carry the shirt with him to several different stores trying to find a matching pant, one that matches the color and fabric feel.
Similarly, when a user has to fix a scratch or chip on a painted wall, the user has to take a paint chip to the store to purchase the right kind of paint. Often, just relying upon a generic name such as peach will not suffice as paint is available in several shades of peach and it is difficult to guess which particular one might better match the paint on the wall at a user's home. Taking a paint chip to one or more stores in order to purchase the matching color paint is a painful task, with the user often loosing or misplacing the paint chip and having to get a second piece of paint chip from the wall to the store.
Some individuals purchase an item in a store and take it home only to discover that the item does not match the color of the walls or the color of the floor or both. Having to factor in the colors of walls and floors, etc., in a typical purchase at a store far from ones home is not easy, and often results in the user guessing them wrong. Without having access to such information at a point of purchase, such as a store, the user cannot rely upon memory to adequately determine the colors of things at home that can be a right match for the item in front of the user at the store.
Ever since the beginning of mobile phones as devices meant for voice communication, the improved performances of these devices have made them multifunctional devices that incorporate keeping record of appointments and schedules, storing addresses, presenting calendars, surfing Internet, playing games among many other, and can be run from any convenient location. The improved performances have led to operating these devices using operating systems. Today's mobile devices typically include high performance cameras that can take pictures as well as video clips.
Mobile devices have been used to take pictures, send pictures and receive video programs. But quite often, people who are color blind are not able to see the pictures properly.
Having operating systems not only make these devices multifunctional but also allow programmers to write evermore sophisticated programs that include applications such as word processing, accounting and programs written to process variety of inputs such as music and other audio clips (such as mp3), and also video clips and movies (such as mp4). The sources of these audio or video clips may be Internet or downloaded mp3 or mp4 files from other devices, while some of the video clips and pictures may be from the built in cameras.
The mobile devices may be networked with external devices such as other mobile phones, laptops and personal computers via infrared or Bluetooth. They can also communicatively couple with external servers via Internet using WiFi interfaces and built in modems. Mobile devices come with wide variety of features, some have small screens and few soft (programmable) keys while many others have larger screens with multiple soft keys. They are also available with alpha numeric keyboards or with keypad on the screen that are operated using a stylus.
Using operating systems, programmers write applications for these mobile devices using one of many programming languages such as XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Some of these programs may be incorporated into the permanent memory of the devices by the manufacturers while others may be written by independent programmers which are downloaded using a flash memory or from an external server via Internet. These programs accomplish many tasks such as managing daily tasks, assisting marketing, keeping data and files stored, managing databases etc. All these capabilities and high performance levels have not yet been harnessed to adequately address the needs of people trying to purchase items that match (at least in color and texture) those things they may already have or have access to. New inventions are needed that provide users tools to perform many daily tasks as well as some specialized tasks. Some of these specialized tasks have to be also incorporated into mobile devices, such incorporation exposes a different set of challenges.
Computer monitors reproduce every color you see on your screen using a combination of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) light. R, G, and B each have 256 possible depths, making it possible for your computer to generate more than 16 million different possible RGB colors—though some older monitors or graphics cards may not be able to display the full range.
These and other limitations and deficiencies associated with the related art may be more fully appreciated by those skilled in the art after comparing such related art with various aspects of the present invention as set forth herein with reference to the figures.